The Clue Trail - Dead, Dead, Deadski (GUMSHOE All)

Beetlejuice

Once upon a time I discussed the Clue Trail and recommended, among other things:

Rule of Four. There are Four ways in: Academic, Technical, Interpersonal, General. What you need is one clue for each of the ways in, so one Academic, one Technical, one Interpersonal, one General. 

Why do it this way? Well, apart from the usual benefits that come with the Rule of Four, you get one extra: split four ways among the four Ability lists, someone in the group will have at least one of those Abilities with points to spend. That means no matter how Scooby Doo it gets one of your dream team will find their way to the mystery. 

I went further and pointed out that this works best when dealing with the unexpected. You didn't think the characters would go to Berlin, say, this week, but here they are, scarfing up the curried bratwurst. What to do when they go looking for trouble?

Now, let's say that this wasn't an accident. Let's say this was planned. Let's say that Berlin was always on the menu and that you had time to design something more in-depth.

Does that change anything?

Not really - but it does allow you to play with the spine.  

The spine, for those of you shaky on the concept, is that part of the scenario structure which holds everything together. It's the bit that connects the dots. The clues characters find along the way are the nerve endings, the capillaries, that wrap around that skeletal structure and put some meat on its bones. Some of these clues lead to valuable information that draws the characters further down the spine. Some are dead ends. Some go unhelpful places. But, in the end, they all lead to the End. The question is, which End?

Let's talk about unhelpful places and dead ends.

Now, in RPGs generally and in GUMSHOE in particular, there should be no such thing as a completely dead end. By which I mean, there should be no such thing as a dead end with nothing fun to do, or nothing interesting to be had. A dead end does not lead any further into the plot. That does not mean it's a complete waste of everybody's time. 

In that sense a dead end is very similar to capture scenes, which I've written about before. The same principle applies: as Director it is your job to make sure the characters have something to do if they find themselves in a dead end scene.

A dead end, strictly speaking, is a position with no hope of progress; a blind alley. Your players thought this clue led somewhere, but it doesn’t. Or that this network contact, this McGuffin, this whatever-it-may-be would have a result, but it doesn’t.

Or – and this is the one to keep an eye on – they ignore a clue that could have led somewhere and, because they did that, now it leads nowhere.

Let’s say for the sake of this example that their network contact Anton was working on [X] and said ‘I’ll have more information for you tomorrow.’ The agents then wander off and commit their usual misdeeds, only remembering about a month later (in game time) that their dear old pal Anton was supposed to be working on [X]. Whatever happened about that? Well, nothing happened. Maybe Anton’s information is out of date. Maybe Anton’s dead. Maybe he’s a vampire now because he got too close to the Conspiracy.

In all those cases what could have been a promising spine trail now is not, because there’s nothing more to be gained by going down that path.

However, just because it’s a blind alley doesn’t mean there’s nothing whatsoever to be gained by going down there. It won’t advance the plot, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with the notion.

Here’s some ways you can do that.

• Antagonist Reaction. There are bad things down that blind alley and they want to twist your head right off its delicate little neck. This can be a useful moment to kick off a fight scene, a chase scene, or some version of the Thrilling moment.
• The Nature of the Beast. You don’t get any useful plot clues but you do find out a little bit more about the nature of the things you’re chasing. Maybe they twist time and there’s some evidence of that down the blind alley, or maybe they have necromantic powers and you discover some of their revivified victims. Oh look! Zombies!
• The Nature of the Plot. Just because that laboratory burned down, taking all of its research experiments with it, doesn’t mean you can’t gain something by sifting through the ashes. Or maybe you notice that there’s things missing from the debris that ought to be there. If that safe was empty when the building burnt down, that tells you the records are still out there somewhere, even if you can’t find them at this location anymore.
• The Nature of the Game, aka Rome. There may be nothing down that blind alley, but if it’s an evocative nothing, if it chills the blood and quickens the pulse, then it’s not a complete waste of everyone’s time. This is the moment most likely to cause a Stability check. It’s also the most likely to contain squick. Or, as Stephen King famously said, “if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out. I'm not proud.”
• The Location of the Plot. This is probably the most useful blind alley, though it may be useful by default. Let’s say that the players had three choices as to where to go next. They went for option A, and it turned out to be a dud. That means the plot’s got to be in B or C, and now they’ve wasted valuable time on A they have less time to deal with whatever’s in store at B or C.

This last option is also the option most likely to frustrate the players so it should be used sparingly. However, there’s juice to be had from building up tension. If the players know it’s a race against time and they realize they’ve wasted some of that precious time following up a bad lead, then their natural reaction is going to be increased motivation spiced with panic.

OK, let's head back to Berlin.

In that example there were the following Clues:

• Academic – History. One point gets the agent a general history of Teufelsberg plus the idea that the NSA left behind some interesting artefacts, buried in the rubble. 
• Interpersonal – Tradecraft. One point gets the agent a general history of Teufelsberg plus some old NSA files, slipped to the agent by a friendly at the local CIA station.
• Technical – Urban Survival. One point gets the agent a general history of Teufelsberg plus some maps and design schematics from back in the day, giving the agent a free Architecture bonus should they want it.
• General – Sense Trouble. One point gets the agent a general recent history of Teufelsberg plus some spooky extras (unexplained deaths, criminal activity, ghost activity, whatever suits best). 

Now, for whatever reason, Teufelsberg is a dead end. Doesn't matter why; it just is. In that case you still have to slip something in there for the players to chew on. It might be an Antagonist Reaction, a clue to the Nature of the Beast, Plot, or Game, or it might be the Location of the Plot. 

For this particular location I favor an Antagonist Reaction. There are enemies at that location, and they will do the characters harm, or try to. 

Now, the players spend their one point of History, Tradecraft or whatever it may be. That means they get to Teufelsberg. 

What if they spend two points? That usually gets them extra bennies, right? What kind of extra benny can be had in a dead end situation?

Answer: advance warning that it is a dead end, or advance warning of what's waiting for them up there. In this case, the creatures lurking up that dead end give themselves away somehow. Maybe the characters notice peculiar shadows or get a warning of supernatural activity. It's quiet. Too quiet. That kind of thing. 

This gives them the opportunity to avoid the antagonist reaction or play into it. Point being, it gives them a choice. 

It gives them something interesting to do, even if this is a dead end.

That's it for this week! Enjoy!

Let's Uncover and Trace a Secret (Night's Black Agents)

Trace. The agents must find something, possibly something that went missing long ago.

Uncover. The agents must uncover a mystery.

Briefly: the Bankhaus is an investment bank with a murky past and has offices in several major cities, of which the Conspiracy has control over the Paris and Zürich branches thanks to its control over Lisle Klingemann, daughter of the boss and a senior partner in her own right, and Albert Ahrens, controller of the Zürich branch and Lisle's devoted slave. The Bankhaus is mainly interested in software development companies, particularly in jurisdictions within Europe, though it has a significant sideline in mining, especially in East Asia, a holdover from its former interests.

It has swanky offices, lawyers, a ton of assets on the book and off, and when it makes calls they get answered by senior politicians and members of the financial elite. It almost doesn't matter whether this is a Supernatural, Damned, Alien or Mutant game; all factions are going to want a piece of the Bankhaus whether to get access to its bottomless bank vaults or for more esoteric reasons.

Clue 

Much like Hunt and Rescue, Trace and Uncover share similar structure and, ultimately, have the same goal. 

In both cases you, you lucky little blighter, are chasing after a McGuffin. The only real difference is whether that McGuffin has physicality or is more metaphorical in nature.

Let’s say you’re trying to Trace something in the present day. There are all kinds of ways that can happen. You can talk to people, you can use electronic tracking methods, you can consult timetables, shipping manifests, shippers, government bureaucrats – any possible source of information, really. Beware common mistakes. Is that number the right one, or was there a transposition? Do you have the right address?

All of this depends on a central premise: that there was a Thing to trace in the first place. Whether that Thing was a person, an object, or something else, it had physical presence and left a trail of information in its wake. Much like the Maltese Falcon it has a history and through that history you can find its current location – in theory, anyway.

Uncovering a mystery has basically the same principle, only this time the McGuffin you’re looking for may or may not be a Thing. It’s as likely to be a Fact. Who killed Colonel Bruce ‘Buff’ Orpington in the locked library of his Yorkshire manor house? Who stole the Muffinchops Diamond? What really happened at that secret meeting? Who betrayed Edom to Dracula back in the 1970s?

The key point being no matter whether you’re Tracing or Uncovering, you’re using the same base skill set to do it and finding the same kind of clues in the process. 

It can be a very thinky adventure. Where a Hit or a Hunt implies some kind of action sequence, there’s no such implication here. You could do exactly as Holmes’ brother Mycroft and solve the entire thing from the comfort of your sitting room. You could do as Poirot does and carry out a little investigative fieldwork while allowing your grey cells to do the heavy lifting. Either method assumes that the investigator does most of the work with their mind, not their fists. I can’t think of a single Poirot, for example, where the detective actually engages in fisticuffs, never mind a gunfight. The TV show was a bit different in that it had to have an action scene, but it was nearly always a Chase of some kind that didn't involve Poirot directly. Even Holmes, for all his legendary baritsu, very rarely stoops to a physical altercation with his villains. 

Which is great, if you’re into that kind of thing. It plays very well with Dust, and Mirrors. However, even die-hard Dust fanatics want someone to march into the room with a gun in their hand every once in a while.

Get Carter 

Get Carter fits very well with this kind of paradigm. In a sense, it’s both an Uncover and a Trace. It starts as an Uncover and starts becoming more of a Trace once Carter realizes the true nature of the mystery he’s trying to Uncover. Plus, while there’s a fair amount of violence it’s more along the lines of a film noir than a James Bond.

One interesting variant on the theme could be Uncovering the mystery of what happened to the agents when they blacked out/were under the influence of hypnosis gas/were Renfielded. This uses basically the same premise as a Trace, except this time the agents are Tracing their own movements. What are those peculiar entries on my credit card statement? Did I really call Pizza Hut 20 times in 30 minutes? What the hell was I drinking?

Potentially this could cover years. If the agents were tools of the Conspiracy from, say, 2000 through to 2010, they’re going to want to know what they were up to in that period. There’s no reason why the Director should let them know everything after one scenario. There could be a mystery element, something that keeps popping up in the long-term narrative the same way Anthony Price uses Debreczen, the alleged school for spies in East Germany, in his 1970s/80s spy novels. 

Incidentally I note that Anthony Price left us in 2019; when I wrote Dusting Off Price in 2013, I wasn’t sure what had happened to him. He was living in Blackheath and for a while there I was in Greenwich and knew Blackheath well. For all I know, I walked past him in the street.

Point being this could become long-term backstory for the agents, and the players. The Uncover, the Trace, don’t have to be single-shots. They can be something you return to again and again as the agents get closer to the source of the mystery.

Then, of course, there’s the bleedin’ obvious. Which is, that the search for Dracula in the Dracula Dossier is as much an Uncover and a Trace mission as it is anything. You’re trying to Trace an individual who leaves a trail – all those coffins and corpses – while at the same time Uncovering the mystery of who he really is, what his weaknesses are, and whether or not he can be killed with garlic pizza.

Even the novel has elements of Uncover and Trace. The heroes Trace Dracula's coffins and Trace his escape downriver to his castle; they Uncover his relationship with Renfield. However, the novel isn't entirely about Uncovering secrets and Tracing things, and there's a strong argument for saying your scenario shouldn't be, either.

Ultimately it will come down to you and your players as to which side of the fence you fall on, but this is one time you should think of scenario building in the same way you'd think of, say, cooking or chemistry: so many parts of this to so many parts of that. Two parts Trace to one part Uncover, that sort of thing. 

Start with the solution and work backwards, says the Resource Guide, building a trail of clues that connects the initial hook to the final scene. Sound advice for both types of scenario.

All that said, let’s go to the Bankhaus.

Let's use Uncle Albert. When I first described the Bankhaus I said:

Albert wants to keep Lisle happy, but it's possible that her continued mental domination has awakened certain desires in him that, until now, he's been able to suppress. He may have a collection of Lisle-a-likes kept at private apartments, or be a familiar figure at local BDSM establishments.

Let's say Uncle Albert is keeping a Lisle-a-like at a luxury apartment in Aarburg, a quiet little Swiss town with a lot of history. Picturesque. Touristy. Small. 

 

Luxury Aarburg Apartment image sourced from Luxuryestate.com

The first order of business is to Trace the Lisle-a-like, presumably because she has well-connected friends who know how to reach out to people like the agents for help. Or, because agents of another vampire-related agency - Edom, say - are using the Lisle-a-like as an excuse to hire the agents, pretending to be concerned parents when in fact they're using the agents as disposable stalking horses. 

The next question you want to ask yourself is how much Uncover, how much Trace? The agents will be Uncovering the mystery of why Albert wants to keep Lisle-a-likes, while at the same time Tracing the Lisle-a-like. I'd guesstimate about two parts Trace to one part Uncover, but it's up to you.

Ideally at the end of the scenario the agents know, or think they know, why Albert wants a Lisle-a-like - the Uncover - and they know where this Lisle-a-like is. Moreover, from this point they should have enough information to know where to look for the next bit of cheese in the maze. They should know about Albert's connection to Lisle, for example. They should know what kind of techniques Albert is using to create Lisle-a-likes, but not where he learned them, or (if specialist equipment is needed) where he's getting his toys.

Unless the agents have been particularly sneaky they also ought to have incurred at least one conspiracy reaction. Are the vampires tracing them? Attacking their allies, menacing their Solaces? That's because they dared Uncover the mystery, interfered with the proper workings of a Node, and brought the wrath of the undead on their vulnerable little Solaces. 

What about the Reverse? Well, in this instance the agents aren't trying to find anything. They're pretending that they already have something, and they're daring the enemy to come get it.

Lovejoy TV show titles, starring Ian McShane

It's a grift, a big store or a short con, where the agents are Henry Gondorff and the conspiracy's people are Robert Shaw's Doyle Lonnegan. 

Using the above as an example, if the agents were to abduct the current Lisle-a-like from her luxury apartment in Aarburg and then dangle her like a carrot in front of Uncle Albert, driving him to distraction and forcing him to chase after her, that would be a reversal of the Uncover/Trace. Now Albert's doing all the work and the agents are playing keep-away. 

This runs the risk of being unplayable for the same reason that a reverse Sneak is unplayable; it's mechanically possible, but the NPCs are doing all the fun plot stuff. That's never a good position for the Director to be in. 

However, a reverse Uncover/Sneak has one undeniable benefit: the agents are taking an active role, because they're the ones pretending either to be something they're not or to have something they don't have. They're the ones selling the big store, roping in the sucker and feeding him the convincer. Those are all active roles.

Let's say this pretense revolves around the Lisle-a-like's ex-lover sneaking back into her life as if she was Rapunzel and he (she?) the roguish prince come to rescue her from dolor. Then the reunited lovers rush off to, well, anywhere really, but let's keep it in Europe and say Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, for a skiing holiday. They might even have stolen some of Uncle Albert's cash to make that happen. It's actually all a ruse to lure Albert out of his place in the Node so the agents can do something nefarious, but if it works ... the payoff will be sweet indeed!

That's it for this week, and this series. Enjoy!